No. 3675

Apricot or Peach Marmalade or Jam

Marmelade d'Abricots ou Marmelade de Peches

Split some very ripe apricots or peaches in two, suppress the kernels, mince and put them into a copper pan with a few spoonfuls of water. Melt over the fire, stirring constantly with a spatula, then strain the pulp through a sieve and weigh it. Cook three-quarters of its weight of sugar to "small crack" (No. 171); when it has attained this degree remove from the fire and pour the pulp into it, stirring vigorously; continue to cook until it coats the skimmer and the jelly drops in beads, then transfer immediately to stone pots or glasses heated beforehand. The jam must be quite cold before covering it over; keep in a cool, dry place.

Apple, Apricot, Peach, Quince and Chestnut Paste.—Prepare a puree of apples, apricots, peaches, quinces or chestnuts; add to either one of these three-quarters of a pound of sugar cooked to "small crack" (No. 171); reduce until the preparation detaches itself from the pan; spread this about one-eighth of an inch thick on sheets of tin or it may be pushed through a cornet in rounds. Put in a hot closet for two days, remove from the tins and when cut roll in coarse powdered sugar.

← No. 3674 Apple Marmalade or Jam Preserves & Conserves No. 3676 Fig and Orange Marmalade or Jam →

For the Modern Kitchen

Ranhofer's method is the classic French one: cook the fruit to a pulp, sieve it, then add it to sugar already boiled to a high stage rather than boiling fruit and sugar together from the start. It works, but two of the instructions are written in a sugar-boiling shorthand that needs translating.

"Small crack" sugarRanhofer's No. 171 (petit cassé) is roughly 275-280F on a candy thermometer, just below hard crack. Boil the sugar with a little water to that point, off the heat, then stir in the hot fruit pulp; adding cold pulp to sugar at that temperature will seize and spit.
The finishing point"coats the skimmer and the jelly drops in beads" is a traditional set test; jam is generally reckoned set at around 220F at sea level. That, not a clock, tells you when the marmalade is done.
Proportions and yieldThree-quarters of the sieved pulp's weight in sugar: 2 lb of pulp takes 1 1/2 lb sugar. Two pounds of ripe apricots yields roughly a pound and a half of pulp, or about three half-pint jars.
Copper panAn unlined copper preserving pan is traditional for jam and safe for the short, high-sugar, high-acid cooking it was designed for. Do not leave acidic fruit standing in it, and do not use a scratched tin-lined pan. Any wide, heavy stainless pan works as well.
Kernels"Suppress the kernels" means discard them. Apricot and peach pits contain amygdalin and are not a flavouring to improvise with; some old recipes crack a few into the pot, and this one sensibly does not.
Sealing"quite cold before covering" belongs to an era when jams were covered with paper, a wax disc or similar, which gives no vacuum seal. Treat the finished jam as refrigerator jam, or process filled jars by a current water-bath canning schedule.
The fruit paste"Hot closet" is the warming cupboard beside the range, perhaps 120-150F. A dehydrator or an oven at its lowest setting with the door propped does the same work; two days is realistic for a 1/8-inch sheet. A "cornet" is a paper piping cone.
Chestnut pasteChestnut puree has little pectin and little acid, so it will not set like the fruit pastes. Reduce it until it pulls cleanly from the pan and expect a dense confection rather than a jelly.

A Little History

Charles Ranhofer spent some thirty years as chef at Delmonico's in New York, and The Epicurean (1894) is his attempt to set down the whole professional repertoire, cross-referenced by number the way a kitchen manual is. The cross-reference to No. 171 for the sugar stage is the giveaway that this was written for cooks who already had a copper sugar pan on the stove. The second half of the entry is pâte de fruits, the ancestor of modern fruit jellies and of quince paste, which in France was made as cotignac long before the nineteenth century and traditionally presented as a gift or a sweetmeat at the end of a meal. Sugar boiled to a hard degree before the fruit went in was the professional route to a paste stiff enough to cut, dry and roll in coarse sugar, at a time when commercial pectin did not yet exist.